spatman wrote:I certainly didn't mean too imply that the failure rate for Fundies students was extremely high, just that it has been rare to see students pass right out of the gate. It seems that historically there has been a very large percentage of "provisionals" received after the class. It also seems that many students started Fundies expecting a provisional, as opposed to passing on the first try.
Good question and I actualy spent some time talking to Dan about some of this when covering the "
when to use the provisional pass" topic.
In the past almost 2 years we have had about
18 Fundamentals students and 8 GUE Tec1 graduates in Seattle alone.. and if memory serves, there was only 2 provisionals.
I firmly believe that the success rate of students are solidly attributed to the amazingly active and growing local GUE community where people make themselves available to share their knowledge and help square away equipment deficiencies and develop basic core stable platforms long before divers get to class.
This makes classes much more enjoyable for students if they can walk into a fundies class with at least being familiar with and have no issues with equipment and possess a basic platform of buoyancy and some exposure on what to expect with regards to propulsion, etc. This way they can come to class to learn and develop and establish solid skill and core foundation and excellent situational aware team diving protocols, without for example having to futs around with figuring out how their equipment works or what a frog kick is..
For example, on my fundies class, I was very very fortunate to have had Lamont and Laura as my amazing mentors and firmly believe to this day that I would not have passed that class first time round if it was not for them. The same on my GUE Tec1 class and GUE Instructor programs where Laurynn and Guy took me under her wing and served as my guiding light.
So - I personally have a
LOT to be grateful for towards my mentors, as many students after me are (I'm sure) are grateful to their individual mentors.
So the golden Key to success in my mind is the community involvement and the selfless nature of people in our diving world that want to help each other out and see each other be successful.
On the flip side, I taught a 4 person Fundamentals class in Florida two months ago with Mark Messersmith in toasty 75 degree super clear fresh water and those students (mostly in wet suits) did not have the luxury of such a vibrant community at all.. We had 1 recreational pass and 2 provisionals and 1 Fail. Thats a 25% "first pass" rate versus our local in the high 80% percentile "first pass" rate...
Sure, student skill and attitude makes or breaks a class, but when looking at the above, the real unsung heroes of success here are not the instructors or the students, but the amazing collection of diving family we have, people like Maggie, Kees, Laurynn, DAve, Dan, Laura, Lamont, Serge, Will, Doug, Larry, Adrian, Bert (and others who I'm sure I've missed) are the true keys to success!
Koos